In a mobile radio communications system, a mobile radio station communicates over an assigned radio channel with a radio base station. Several base stations are usually connected to a switching node, which is typically connected to a gateway that interfaces the mobile radio communications system with other communications systems. A call placed from an external network to a mobile station is directed to the gateway, and from the gateway through one or more nodes to a base stations which serves the called mobile station. The base station pages the called mobile station and establishes a radio communications channel. A call originated by the mobile station follows a similar path in the opposite direction.
In a spread spectrum, Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) mobile communications system, spreading codes are used to distinguish information associated with different mobile stations or base stations transmitting over the same frequency band. In other words, individual radio “channels” correspond to and are discriminated on the basis of these codes. Each coded signal overlaps all of the other coded signals as well as noise-related signals in both frequency and time. By correlating a composite signal with one of the distinguishing spreading codes, the corresponding information can be isolated and decoded.
Spread spectrum communications permit mobile station transmissions to be received at two or more “diverse” base stations and processed simultaneously to generate one received signal. With these combined signal processing capabilities, it is possible to perform a “handover” from one base station to another without any perceptible disturbance in the voice or data communications. This type of handover is typically called diversity handover and may include a “soft” handover between two base stations and a “softer” diversity handover between two different antenna sectors connected to the same, multi-sectored base station.
Because all users of a CDMA communications system transmit information using the same frequency band at the same time, each user's communication interferes with the communications of other users. In addition, signals received by a base station from a mobile station that is close to the base station are much stronger than signals received from other mobile stations located at the base station cell boundary. As a result, close-in mobile stations may overshadow and dominate more distant mobile communications, which is why this condition is sometimes referred to as the “near-far effect.” Thus, control of mobile transmit power level is important in order to prevent such near-far effects. Power control is also needed to compensate for changing physical characteristics of a radio channel. Indeed, the signal propagation loss between a radio transmitter and receiver varies as a function of their respective locations, obstacles, weather, etc. Consequently, large differences may arise in the strength of signals received at the base station from different mobiles.
Ideally, all mobile-transmitted signals should arrive at the base station with about the same average power irrespective of the path loss to the base station. By regulating transmit power to the minimum necessary to maintain satisfactory call quality, capacity at the mobile radio communications system can be increased approximately seventy percent as compared with an unregulated system, (assuming that all the calls or connections have the same target signal-to-interference ratio). In addition, mobile stations consume less energy when transmit power levels are maintained at a lowest possible level, thereby reducing battery drain which results in mobile stations lighter in weight and smaller in size.
If the transmission power from a mobile signal is too low, (for whatever reason), the receiving base station may not correctly decode a weak signal, and the signal will have to be corrected (if possible) or retransmitted. Erroneous receipt of signals adds to the delay associated with radio access procedures, increases signal processing overhead, and reduces the available radio bandwidth because erroneously received signals must be retransmitted. On the other hand, if the mobile transmission power is too high, the signals transmitted by the mobile station create interference for the other mobile and base stations in the system.
A significant problem in CDMA systems with transmitting too much power is the so-called “party effect.” If one mobile transmits at too high of a power level, (a person is talking too loudly at a party), the other mobiles may increase their power levels so that they can be “heard,” (over the loud talker), compounding the already serious interference problem. As each mobile increases its transmit power, (becomes a loud talker), the other mobiles react by raising their transmit powers. Soon all mobiles may be transmitting at maximum power with significantly degraded service and diminished capacity. Thus, while transmit power control is important in any mobile radio communications system, it is particularly important to the performance and capacity of a CDMA-based mobile radio communications system.
One parameter affecting the capacity of a CDMA-based system that can be measured by a base station is the total uplink (from mobile station-to-base station) interference level at the base station. The uplink interference includes the sum of all radio beams that reach a receiver in the base station for a specific radio frequency carrier, plus any received noise or interference from other sources. Because of the importance of interference level to the capacity of the CDMA-based radio network, a radio network controller normally receives measurement reports from radio base stations including periodic uplink interference and downlink power measurements. These measurement reports may be used by call admission and congestion control functions of the radio network controller. If the downlink power and uplink interference levels are sufficiently low, the admission control function may “admit” a new call request and allocate the appropriate radio resources, assuming other conditions are met, e.g., there are sufficient radio resources currently available. However, if there are insufficient resources or the cell is at capacity or in an overload condition, the admission control function may restrict or reduce the amount of traffic and thereby interference. For example, new mobile connection requests may be rejected, data throughput may be reduced, data packets delayed, handovers to other frequencies/cells forced to occur, connections terminated, etc. Of course, these types of actions should be employed only where necessary; otherwise, the cellular network services and capacity are unnecessarily reduced.
Accordingly, it is an important goal in a CDMA-based cellular radio system to optimize the capacity of a particular cell without overloading that cell. Some type of metric is needed that provides an accurate measurement or other indicator of the current capacity, congestion level, or load in a cell. One possible metric is total received uplink interference as measured by the base station. Measurement of total received uplink interference can be made using some sort of power sensor such as a diode. For example, the voltage detected across the diode can be used to indicate the received uplink interference.
Unfortunately, a limitation with this measurement-based metric is accuracy. It is very difficult to accurately measure total uplink received power using these types of sensors because the outputs of such sensors change with temperature, aging, component tolerances, etc. Thus, while a desired measurement accuracy of the total uplink received power or interference level may be +/−1 dB (or less), the actual measurement accuracy possible with such absolute value measurement techniques may only be +/−3-5 dB, when considering economic and product restrictions like manufacturing cost, volume, power consumption, etc.
Such a measurement margin means that the maximum capacity of a cell must account for this uncertainty. To guarantee that the power or interference level does not exceed a particular maximum value in a cell, it is necessary to include a margin that equals the largest possible error. In other words, the maximum capacity for a cell must be designed lower than necessary in order to account for the fact that the power or interference level measurement might well be 5 dB lower than the actual power or interference level. The price for such safety margins because of inaccurate measurement is high. The loss in capacity between a power or interference level measurement uncertainty of +/−1 dB and +/−3-5 dB is on the order of twenty to forty percent.
Another metric that might overcome the difficulties with accurately measuring the absolute received power or interference level in a cell is a measurement of the variance or standard deviation of received power or interference. This variance metric is useful because it is only measuring a relative value, i.e., changes from one measurement instance to another. Thus, the absolute measurement accuracy is not as important as with the previous metric. The underlying premise of such a variance metric is that as the loading of a cell increases, so does the variance of the received power. One problem with this approach is that too much time is needed to obtain the necessary statistics to calculate the variance.
The present invention employs a metric that overcomes the problems with absolute measurement and variance measurement metrics. Rather than measuring the absolute or relative value of a particular radio parameter or condition in a cell, the present invention determines the load situation of a cell without the need to measure that load condition. Based upon that determined load condition, a traffic condition of the cell may then be regulated, e.g., by an admission and/or congestion control algorithm. The load situation is determined simply and accurately by observing the value of transmit power control commands issued in the cell over a particular time period. In one example implementation, the number of increase transmit power commands issued in a cell over a particular time period is determined relative to a total number of transmit power commands, (i.e., both increase and decrease), issued in the cell for that same time period. If the number of increase transmit power commands relative to the total number of transmit power commands exceeds a threshold, an overload condition may be indicated. When an overload is indicated, an action may be taken that reduces the load in the cell. In a preferred example, the present invention is used in the context of uplink power control. However, the invention may also be applied in a downlink power control context.
An alternative example implementation is to monitor the number of increase power commands issued in the cell over the time period relative to the number of decrease power commands for that same time period. If a difference between a number of increase and decrease transmit power commands exceeds a threshold, action can be taken to reduce the load in the cell. Both example implementations may employ one or more counters operated at a sufficiently high clocking speed in accordance with the frequency of transmit power commands being issued. One or more counters provides a simple and inexpensive way to implement the present invention.
Additional optional features may be used to advantage along with power command observation-based control procedures. For example, averaging of the counter output may be employed to reduce the network reaction to transient fluctuations. Furthermore, it may be desirable to detect the rate of change of the counter output in order to vary the threshold of the threshold detector. A significant rate increase in the number of increase power control commands may indicate a potentially unstable situation. As a result, the threshold value could be decreased to prompt a quicker network reaction to the unstable situation.
Still further, it may be desirable to avoid a “false alarm” or other undesired network reaction in certain situations by considering one or more other factors along with observed power command values. For example, a relative power measurement may be employed to determine whether the received signal strength really is increasing. Relative measurements do not suffer from the same inaccuracy as absolute measurements, at least not during short time intervals relevant, e.g., on the order of milliseconds to seconds.
Another optional feature is for the base station to “weight” the power command values so that the weighted transmit power control command values reflect the different degrees to which those commands will likely impact the cell load/congestion condition. For example, transmit power increases (and decreases) for higher bit rate connections will have a greater impact than those for lower bit rate connections. Transmit power increases in only a few high bit rate connections may well lead to a congestion condition faster than power increases in many more low bit rate connections.
By observing values of transmit power control commands (TPCCs) issued in a cell over a particular time period, the present invention provides an effective, efficient, and cost effective method to accurately detect and regulate the load condition of a cell. Because the TPCC metric is not measured—but counted—a margin of error need not be used, which margin may significantly reduce capacity in the cell. The amount of traffic and/or the power level in a cell can therefore be regulated to optimize the cell's capacity without creating an unstable or undesirable situation, e.g., a “party effect” ramp-up of transmit power/interference.